Optical Quantum computing

By 06.27.2001 :: 11:46AM EDT06.27.2001

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researchers at the university of rochester, new york, have come up with a way to harness a “quantum database” using the interference patterns present in various light wave combinations. the process involves an interaction between electrons, light waves, and acoustic elements, which culminate into the quantum database, called an oracle. the best thing about this is it can be done with off-the-shelf components. quantum computers–unlike silicon-based computers–are capable of computing all possible results for every item in the range of input in a single operation. they accomplish this by using several principles of quantum electrodynamics (qed) which result in known interference patterns being utilized to store and retrieve data. this particular application passes a beam of light encoded with the search criteria through the interference pattern. when it emerges on the other side the retrieved data is encoded within the beam. this makes their potential very beneficial to server farms and data retrieval systems because of its capability to lookup all possible combinations of a search criteria in a single operation, compared to traditional silicon-based search engines which require multiple steps to complete the search. this is very noteworthy because #1 it's optical, #2 it's economical (because it uses many off-the-shelf components), and #3 it's many orders of magnitude faster than traditional silicon-based systems. no word was given as to when we can expect practical devices.

user comments 3 comment(s)

what?(5:59pm est wed jun 27 2001)i need to pull out my geek jargon dictionary for this one. i will be back after decifering. sounds cool though.

i need to learn more about quantum computing, i guess – by quantumflux